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Dave_Saunders
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Dave_Saunders
Advocate
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‎Aug 06, 2013
11:12 AM
1 Upvote
What you need to do is work out the center-point of the graphic: var center = {x : (bnds[1] + bnds[3])/2, y : (bnds[0] + bnds[2])/2} Then, after making your text frame, populating and fitting it, get its center point by using its bounds, and assign it to a similar variable: var capCenter = {x : (capbnds[1] + capbnds[3])/2, y : (capbnds[0] + capbnds[2])/2} Armed with this information, you can now do a relative move: myCaption.move(undefined, [center.x - capCenter.x, center.y - capCenter.y]); And your caption will be centered over the graphic. Dave
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‎Aug 05, 2013
08:08 AM
It's not clear what's causing you dificulty. Are you aware of the horizontalOffset property of text? With that, you can measure the length of the dialog prefixes in the paragraphs of interest and then use the largest value plus some buffer to set your paragraph -- you speak of tabs, but it seems to me that the left marging and first line inset are all you really need to set. Dave
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‎Aug 05, 2013
07:10 AM
If you follow the parental trail up from any folder, you'll eventually reach the top. The top is null. So, your statement is failing because you are assuming that that your file is sufficiently deep into the file system that the parent of the parent of the parent of the parent of the parent of the parent of the folder holding your file isn't over the top, but apparently it is. Dave
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‎Mar 15, 2013
09:42 AM
This is one of those things that seems so obvious to me, but clearly it depends on individual workflows. Here's what I wanted to do: I have a long script (>5,000 lines). It makes many calls to a function named scriptLog. I often add messages that are classified as "Temp: ", so I wanted to search for all instances of "Temp: " that wasn't already commented out. Or to find all instances of "scriptLog" that's not already commented out. Heck, I could imagine a three-way toggle being useful: all / ignore comments / comments only That way, I could quickly find my calls to "printObject" that are at the moment commented out. Dave
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‎Mar 15, 2013
06:37 AM
... had an Ignore Comments toggle? Dave
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‎Mar 06, 2013
02:29 PM
Thanks Dirk, It happens that I was using the page bounds only as a convenient way of getting some known cooridinates. I actually want to draw a frame on the pasteboard. But I guess that using the anchor points of the page to get some numbers is all that's needed to get started. I trust things have been well with you. I'm still working for Typefi; amaziing to think it's been almost seven years! Dave
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‎Mar 06, 2013
12:54 PM
While I could have written this script three times over using geometricBounds, every now and then I recall the heated discussions with the Adobe engineer who called us all idiots for not using reframe, so I give it another go and remember why I was so heated all that time ago. frame = app.selection[0]; page = app.documents[0].pages[0]; pBounds = page.bounds; $.writeln("pBounds: " + pBounds); // => pBounds: 0,0,792,612 frame.reframe(CoordinateSpaces.spreadCoordinates, [[pBounds[1], pBounds[0]],[pBounds[3],pBounds[2]]]); $.writeln("frameBounds: " + frame.geometricBounds); // => frameBounds: 396,0,1188,612 I created a new document and set the rulers to points. Drew a text frame and ran the above script. Instead of moving the frame to the top-left corner of the page and resizing to match the size of the page, it did what's indicated in the comments above. The frame is the right size, it's just halfway down the page instead of at top-left. I tried this variation (newly available in CS6): frame = app.selection[0]; page = app.documents[0].pages[0]; pBounds = page.bounds; $.writeln("pBounds: " + pBounds); // => pBounds: 0,0,792,612 frame.reframe(CoordinateSpaces.pageCoordinates, [[pBounds[1], pBounds[0]],[pBounds[3],pBounds[2]]]); $.writeln("frameBounds: " + frame.geometricBounds); // => frameBounds: 302.625,253.875,1094.625,865.875 And this produces gobbledegook, although again, the frame is the right size. Just in the wrong place, off by some random amount. I think I'll go back to using geometricBounds. But can anyone explain this? Dave
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‎Aug 26, 2012
01:37 PM
What does "it has no contents" mean? Contents of ""? If you have: Text Long Table Text Empty Frames at end Then the overset test will work only if you cycle backwards through the text containers of the story. Must get rid of those at the end before looking at those in the middle. A text frame in the middle can be empty because of a text wrap. I guess it's a question of whether or not you want to delete those too. If not, then work from the end of a story until you find a frame that is not empty and then, almost by definition, all the previous frames are not empty -- although even in this scenario you could have a very small frame that is empty because there isn't space in it for even one character. Dave
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‎Aug 26, 2012
11:02 AM
Footnote.textFrames is the collection of all text frames that are anchored/inline to the footnote. This empty frame thing is a real challenge. If you have a table that spans more than two frames, the intermediate frames that only contain part of a table are a pain to identify (I guess the same is true of partial footnotes, although such long footnotes don't come up so often as long tables do. With CS5+, you can get myTable.storyOffset.paragraphs[0].lines.everyItem().parentTextFrames[0] I believe that will get you an array of the text frames visited by the paragraph holding the table. Hmm. I wonder what happens if you use: myTable.storyOffset.parentStory.lines.everyItem().parentTextFrames[0] That will probably run rather slowly, but it should give you a highly repetitive array of all the text frames visited by the story. Doesn't solve the footnotes issue though. Dave
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‎Aug 24, 2012
08:15 AM
Can't help, but I can confirm that I've reproduced this problem. Simply: aBook.epubExportPreferences fails, while: aDoc.epubExportPreferences doesn't. Dave
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‎Jun 10, 2012
06:33 AM
Thanks Harbs. That approach certainly works on the desktop and makes the process of what to do to the selection a lot easier. Still, you have to be careful to examine the selection properly so you don't give the whole selection blanket treatment based on the settings of the first character. Dave
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‎Jun 10, 2012
05:33 AM
Have you ever written a script? Which language(s) are you familiar with? Which one do you want to use? In JavaScript you can do something like: myDoc = app.documents[0]; myPIs = myDoc.allPageItems; for (var j = myPIs.length - 1; j >= 0; j--) { if (myPIs .label != "") { // process this label } } Dave
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‎Jun 10, 2012
05:28 AM
1 Upvote
Random thoughts in the order I noticed them: That long-winded switch to determine if the selection is text is not necessary. Just use: if (app.selection[0].hasOwnProperty("baseline")) { // is selection text? Ole uses that switch into the samples because he needed to use techniques that work in all three languages. The hasOwnProperty method is a JavaScript special. Why pass "mySelection" into your function if you then don't use it. The values of the properties returned to your script when the selection is a range of text are those of the first character. They might be all the same, but you might have to dig into the selection and process each TextStyleRange within it. Dave
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‎May 16, 2012
04:56 AM
I can't think of a way. Why do you care? Dave
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‎May 12, 2012
05:33 AM
Have you ever written a script? Which language did you use? Can you use your experience to guide you with a solution like this: Because of nested and grep styles, it might be necessary to look at every character and capture the properties of interest into an (potentially enormous) array and then walk through it looking for the changes that interest you. Dave
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‎May 12, 2012
05:29 AM
There's no magic bullet for finding where a color is used. You'll need to cycle through the page items on your layer of interest, looking at all the properties of every object that has properties with "Color" in their names. When the page item is a text frame, you'll need to check its text -- I think you can work with textStyleRanges to do that, but maybe not because they don't catch things like nested and grep styles. What do you want to do when you find a color in use on your layer? It will undoubtedly make a script like this run faster if you do the homework and develop lists of the specific properties of interest rather than hunt through every possible property for the word "Color" dynamically. Dave
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‎May 11, 2012
07:26 PM
Indeed, it can't be done directly with a findGrep (or findChange). Look at the dialog box in InDesign and you'll see that the paragraph rules are not included. Since the JS Find features leverage the technology that provides the find features to the interactive user, it suffers from the same limitation. In a script, you can get around this by doing the find (rather than a change) and then iterate through the results setting the paragraph rule you want. Dave
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‎May 11, 2012
07:18 PM
I usually use Ariel's approach (but watch out for wrap around at the beginning of the story), but lately, I've been using paragraph counts by employing this function to get the paragraph count: function paraCount(story, start, end) { // start and end should either be the same kinds of text objects within the story // or indexes in the story return story.insertionPoints.itemByRange(start, end).texts[0].paragraphs.length; } So, the previous paragraph is: myStory.paragraphs[paraCount(myStory, 0, myPara.index) - 1]; But again, watch out if myPara.index == 0 because that'll give you the same paragraph you started with. Dave
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‎May 05, 2012
04:42 AM
Well, it didn't take much experimentation to discover that the answer is no. The middle column in a three-column frame has zero or one line of text from the main story along with the text from the long footnote. And this without any keeps at all. It looks really ridiculous when there is just one line there, although in the case I was working with I used the default gap above the notes of zero. Let's try with a gap there ... Same thing happens when a gap is called for. You get one or no lines at the top of the second column, depending on the height of the frame. Dave
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‎May 04, 2012
08:18 AM
Assuming you have a reference to the pdf's containing frame (because that's what you need to move): myPage = myPDFframe.parentPage; moveAmount = myPage.side == PageSideOptions.leftHand ? [52, 30] : [250, 35]; myPDFframe.move(moveAmount); Dave
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‎May 04, 2012
07:29 AM
You need: stories.paragraphs[0].parentTextFrames[0].move([3,5)]; or stories.textContainers[0].move([3,5]); Stories don't have a parentTextFrames property, so when JavaScript sees that, it thinks you're creating a new property. I'm not sure why attempting to move it doesn't result in an error, but not getting errors when you think you should is all part of the JS experience. Dave
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‎May 04, 2012
07:20 AM
Comparable code worked for me (in CS4 -- the machine I had handy is one I use for supporting customers on older versions). Are you sure that your destinationMasterPage was a page and not a spread? That would cause a failure. Dave
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‎May 03, 2012
07:19 AM
Not a scripting question per se, but it sure affects the script I'm writing. I'm trying to detect and address collisions between footnotes and other items on a page. I think in the world of documents I inhabit, I'm not going to run into such a long footnote, but the moment you start thinking that way one pops out of the woodwork and smacks you in the face. I guess the reason for my question is some sense that maybe there's a kind of column-balancing that goes on with footnotes? No of course not. I think I know the answer to my own question: Yes! But I wonder if there's a circumstance where it's not true. Anyone have any instances of a footnote spreading to three columns without filling the second one? For example, could keeps cause a space to appear at the top, enough to allow some story text in there? Wait: InDesign hates empty text columns -- is one that only has a partial footnote in it considered empty? In the case where there is only a partial footnote, myTextColumn.footnotes.length returns 0. Perhaps I should construct some examples to see what happens. Dave
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‎May 03, 2012
04:52 AM
Yes it is possible, although you need to answer the question: what do you want to do at column/page breaks? Your described techique won't work there. But you seem to be expecting some kind soul to just write a script for you. That might happen, but most people needing a script who aren't prepared to write one themselves would look to hire someone to do the work for them. Good luck. Dave
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‎May 03, 2012
04:00 AM
You really need to provide a litte more basic information. For example: which scripting language are you using? You say you're trying -- show us your attempt so we can guide you. How is the small-caps applied? Local formatting or character style? Would just changing the spec of the character style do the job (if so, why not do it without a script?) or is there some filter you want to apply to single out particular instances? Dave
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‎May 02, 2012
11:49 AM
1 Upvote
Yes you're right. It's the scripting equivalent of grabbing the box at top right of a frame and dragging it to an insertionPoint, and indeed, that came in with CS5.5. Dave
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‎May 02, 2012
11:38 AM
You need to get a reference to your group -- let's call it myGroup -- and another to the insertionPoint where you want it anchored -- let's call it myIP. Given those, you can achieve your objective (in CS5 or later) by: myGroup.anchoredObjectSettings.insertAnchoredObject(myIP); You can specify a second parameter if you wish that specifies the anchor position: myGroup.anchoredObjectSettings.insertAnchoredObject(myIP, AnchorPosition.anchored); That should get you started. Dave
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‎Jul 03, 2011
10:03 AM
Fascinating. The OMV shows no parameter needed for the BookContent.remove() method. I ran into what looks like a similar problem a year or so ago. It never occured to me to try your solution. I ended up just deleting the book file from the file system and making a new book with the same name. Dave
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